Caledonia land dispute: Crown withdraws charges against Indigenous jounalist Karl Dockstader

Karl Dockstader has made it as far as his driveway.

But despite having the charges against him dropped, he has not yet returned to Caledonia to continue the reporting on the McKenzie Meadows occupation that got him arrested in the first place.

“In the back of my head I’m like, ‘Is something going to happen this time where I’ll make a mistake and it’ll get on video, and this will be the time the cops will make charges stick?’” said Dockstader, an Indigenous journalist from Oneida on the Thames who hosts a Niagara radio show and podcast.

“Even though I’m not going out there to do anything other than reporting, it’s planted a seed of doubt that I can’t get rid of. I still have a lingering fear that I could be arrested at a moment’s notice.”

Over the summer, Dockstader spent a week embedded at the camp on McKenzie Road, which Six Nations land defenders claim as unceded Haudenosaunee territory. He was subsequently arrested on Sept. 2 for violating an injunction which orders anyone not authorized by Foxgate Developments to leave the disputed construction site.

On Dec. 15, the Crown withdrew all criminal charges, telling the judge there was no reasonable prospect of conviction.

“I was relieved, but it didn’t last long,” Dockstader said.

“It struck me how many people were there who didn’t have their charges withdrawn. So I was happy, but I felt really bad for everyone else who still has charges to contend with.”

Dockstader called his arrest “a gross misuse of police power,” adding that he feels he was treated differently because he is Indigenous.

“I definitely think I was arrested for reporting while Indigenous,” he said. “There was nothing I was doing the week that I was there that was nefarious, that was harmful, that was actively assisting the movement.”

At the time of Dockstader’s arrest, OPP Const. Rod LeClair told The Spectator that while police are “committed to the freedom of the press,” a press pass does not grant journalists immunity.

“Engaging in activities outside of their reporting purpose could subject media personnel to charges in relation to violation of a court order and other applicable offences,” LeClair said.

Dockstader said he felt “vindicated” by the Crown’s decision, but said his arrest continues to have a chilling effect on his work.

He added that his ordeal changed how his family perceives the justice system, deepening the skepticism that his wife and children already felt about how the police and courts treat Indigenous people.

“That’s probably the worst part of all of this – that their faith in the system was destroyed the second the charges got laid,” he said.

“Withdrawing the charges, I think, did nothing to change where they stand. They just see it as a through-and-through miscarriage of justice from beginning to end.”

Dockstader’s lawyer, Emily Lam of Kastner Lam LLP, confirmed that he is “free and clear” to continue reporting at the disputed site, something Dockstader said he looks forward to doing, even with the threat of arrest still nagging at him.

“I’ll be back to report,” he said. “But I’ll have that fear in my back of my mind, always.”

J.P. Antonacci, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Hamilton Spectator